“We are very close to accomplishing a mutually beneficial agreement” said prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, addressing a conference of the Association of Greek Industrialists, last night. Mr. Tsipras said among other things that a basic prerequisite for such an agreement is to find common ground on the issue of the restructuring of the Greek debt, low economic surplus for this year and the next, an investment package that will help the restart of the economy and no further cuts in salaries and pensions.

Finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, said in a televised interview last night that the three main obstacles in the negotiations with Greece’s creditors are social security, employment and public finance issues. He added that what “our lenders have to understand is that they must cease to play this game of strangulation and accept the fact that previous memoranda policies have expired”.

Negotiators are scheduled to sit at the table again tomorrow in Brussels, according to information from the Greek side.

New Democracy President, Antonis Samaras, said that “any agreement would be welcome at this point, given that one should have been reached already”.

A new poll executed by the University of Macedonia shows Syriza ahead of New Democracy by 21 percentage points. 36.5% as opposed to 15.5% for ND.

Tens of thousands of Macedonians have staged a rally in support of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, a day after similar numbers had demonstrated against his government. Monday's rally was being held outside parliament in the capital, Skopje. Mr Gruevski, who was at the rally to address the crowd, faces wire-tapping and corruption allegations but denies wrongdoing and has refused to resign.

The weather forecast for today calls for mostly sunny skies in Athens and 27 degrees Celsius. Partly cloudy in Thessaloniki and 26 degrees. 24 in Komotini and Kavala, 21 in Patras, 29 in Rhodes and 23 in Herakleion.